Grateful
by TheLucindaC
Summary: Dean has some guilt that he has been harboring about Cas helping them out so often, and he needs someone to listen. He needs Cas to know the truth. "Frontierland" has a new ending. Rated T for brief language


If he was really as shallow as he sometimes pretended to be, he could have blamed it on the adrenaline. Or maybe the usual crush of defeat. But Sam had had to point out to him how beat Cas looked sitting in that chair. By angel standards, he was crumpled, bordering on flattened. Bobby had said he would be fine, and Dean actually believed him. But Cas…he wasn't fine. Nothing had been fine for this angel in so long that the defeat was starting to show on his face. And what had Dean done? He had practically demanded Castiel to fix a mess that ended up not needing to be fixed. And then he had apologized to Bobby first…for what exactly? How stupid, low, and selfish could he get?

So after their trip into the Wild West had died down in the pits of their memories, Dean was in one of the bedrooms of Bobby's house, somewhat reluctantly back in his own regular clothes. And his gut was eating him up with guilt. He thought about everything that Cas had been doing for them since…well, since ever.

"Cas, I know you pretty much just left, but I need to talk. Can you stop by when you get the chance?" he whispered to the thin air pervading the room.

He heard the sound of the angel's arrival, and his breath struggled between a sigh of relief and a nervous kick in the abdomen that usually came with admitting the truth to someone who trusted him. Dean couldn't face him, so he just backed up and sat on the bed. "Listen, I…I'm an idiot," was how he chose to begin.

"Are you trying to get me to confirm or deny your statement?" Castiel questioned blatantly.

"Neither. I just…I need you to just listen."

"I've been doing that since I came here, Dean."

"Yeah, I got that," and he had to clamp down a small flare of his temper that threatened to rise, before he finally began again. "I don't know what I've done to deserve…"

"What?"

"Why are you still helping us, Cas?"

"You wish me to stop?"

"If you feel like you should…"

"Tell me what is on your mind, Dean."

"I'm a selfish bastard, that's what!" He managed to grunt out, wishing that he could have clamped down on that thought before it had escaped from his mouth. "We ask so much of you, and every time you have sacrificed something for us. It's like we keep thinking, 'hey, if we can't do it right away, Cas'll dig us out of this mess' or something like that. You are practically the single reason we averted the Apocalypse in the first place, and still there's always something that we have to ask you for. God, I can be so blind sometimes." He ran a hand through his hair, gripping a tuft by the roots in a manner of something bordering on self-punishment, so that his left eye was buried in the palm of his left hand, and his elbow was digging into his knee. After a long pause, he finally said, "I want to say this now, while I'm not involved in any case or recovering from one. This is as raw as it can get; that's why it means more than it would otherwise. Cas, thank you. I mean it. Thank you."

Dean felt that he could finally turn and face his friend now. The lines of stress and worry were still there on his face, the hole in his shirt from where an angel...that Rachel bitch…had stabbed him wasn't repaired yet. But as their eyes met in one of those stares that lasted for eternity, Cas' eyes shifted from absorbing to appreciation.

The disheveled face titled downward in a curt nod, but the second before Cas chose to disappear, he allowed Dean to see the small smile that crept into his expression.

And Dean knew that Cas had needed to hear those words. As he stared at the empty space where the angel had stood moments before, he felt the smallest burning on that palm-shaped scar that still was seared onto his shoulder. There was no pain; it was a recognizable, comforting warmth. A 'thank you' for a 'thank you'.

"Right back atcha, Cas," he murmured, and then went downstairs for a cold beer from Bobby's fridge.

FIN

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><p>AN: The ending of "Frontierland" bugged me a bit. My inner Destiel shipper needed some comforting, some reassurance. And the fact that Cas does need to be thanked for all that he has done kept bugging me too, so I HAD to write this for my own sanity. But, I am worried about what Rachel said; that Cas was becoming something bad. And I keep getting these nagging fears that Dean and Sam are going to find out what Cas has been doing in this angel war. And that what Cas has been doing is going to turn out to be horrible. Like, "bordering unforgivable" kind of horrible. I'm a writer, I have an overactive imagination and I can sense things. (shudders) Anyone know where I can find some tender Destiel fanfictions that can set my mind at ease?

BTW, review?


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